NEW ZEALAND –An audit has questioned a NZ$700,000 trip to Hawai‘i by an entire New Zealand school.

Rotorua’s Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Ruamata took all its 139 students, 21 teachers and 73 caregivers on the trip last year.

In an audit report, the Office of the Auditor-General said it was “unusual” for a school to spend so much on a trip like that.

The report was one of almost 2500 routine audits of schools just released.

It said that those who went to Hawai‘i contributed just $37,000 to the cost.

The Audit Office said it had recommended to the Education Ministry that it make clear the rules regarding public money being used to fund overseas trips.

In 2009 the ministry circulated guidance against using funds that way – but that had since been withdrawn.

“Although not common practice across most schools, our auditors continue to identify schools that are using Crown funding to pay to send students overseas,” the school audit report said.

“It is difficult for us as auditors to judge whether the outcomes are educational.”

School principal Dr Cathy Dewes said she was unsure how the Hawai‘i trip showed up in the books, but people’s contributions were major.

“That $37,000 figure quoted as whanau contributions is somewhat misleading. There had been considerable accumulation of funds over several years, a significant amount, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Dr Dewes said people contributed by, for instance, volunteering their services so that the fee they would have been paid went towards the trip, but might show up as if it came from Crown funds.

They had done such trips before and would do them again, she said.

“We’ve retraced the footsteps of our ancestors,” she said.

“We’ve been to Rarotonga, we’ve been to Tahiti, we’ve been to Rangiatea. Now we can tick off Hawai‘i and I’m not quite sure where we’ll go next.”

A call from Radio New Zealand was the first she knew of the audit report.

“Obviously we do need clarity because we thought we were all fine. I’m surprised we have been reported.”

All the previous trips entailed years’ worth of input, and none were questioned in earlier audits, she said.

In the case of Hawai‘i, she had told the education minister’s office about it, as she thought that was the protocol, and shown the Education Ministry the fundraising records.

“I can’t remember exactly what they said, but everybody seemed happy with the evidence we were able to provide.”

Dr Dewes, who set up the kura 28 years ago, said the Hawai‘i trip would provide at least two years’ worth of learning.

“We went back to the place that our canoe left from and came to Aotearoa. We took caregivers with us because our approach to education is that the whole whanau is involved. One year on, and we’re still studying the topics.” - RNZI